Canadian oil producer Talisman says in talks over its acquisition

Canadian oil producer Talisman Energy Inc today said that several suitors have approached it including Spanish oil giant Repsol SA, for various transactions.

Bloomberg yesterday reported that Repsol and Talisman have renewed talks over buying certain assets or the acquisition of the entire company.

Talisman said there is no assurance that a deal will be agreed to and it will not make any further comment on the matter now.

Repsol had approached Talisman in July but talks broke down over the valuation of the Calgary-based company's North Sea assets and its assets valuation, which has fallen by about 60 per cent since the end of August to C$4.5 billion ($3.9 billion).

Talisman, whose shareholders include activist investor Carl Icahn, had earlier said that it plans to sell assets worth $2-billion to $3-billion in the US, Canada and Norway in order to cut debt and boost profits.

The company, which has a market cap of nearly $4.5 billion and debt of $4 billion, has seen its stock price fall by nearly 66 per cent since the past four months due to decline in global crude prices and falling output in its North Sea assets.

Crude price has declined by about 40 per cent since June to around $70 a barrel, and is expected to fall to as low as $53 a barrel in 2015.

Last year it sold a 75-per cent stake in its Montney oil field in northeast British Columbia to Progress Energy Canada Ltd for C$1.5 billion ($1.44 billion), and is now reported to be in talks to sell its pipeline operations serving the Marcellus Shale region in New York and Pennsylvania to Regency Energy Partners

The Toronto and New York stock exchanges-listed company has seen its revenues fall from $6.8 billion in 2012 to $4.7 last year.

Talisman, one of Canada's largest independent oil and gas company, is a global upstream oil and gas company operating in the Americas (North America and Colombia), and Asia-Pacific.

It holds interests in various oil and gas properties in Canada, the US, Malaysia, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, the UK, Norway, Algeria, Colombia and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, as well as in Australia/Timor-Leste.

Madrid-based Respol is Spain's largest oil and gas company with market cap of €24.1 billion and 2013 revenues of $61.4 billion.